Supports Us

Join us on facebook

Newsletter

Wind power slows down – 2011 growth rates lower than expected and in the past

Did the wind power boom in Poland end before it could really start? This is the most important question asked by investors after the ERO published data concerning the sector’s development last year and after publication of the package of energy legislation. In accordance with the latest data of the Energy Regulatory Office, at the end of December 2011 there were 1 616.36 MW of installed wind capacity.

In 2010 the figure was 1179 MW, hence the growth of 437 MW, which is 18 MW less than in 2010, which saw 455 MW of new capacity. This is much below operators’ forecasts reaching 2 000 MW and the industry’s capacity. The data demonstrate that despite hundreds of millions Euros of European and national subsidies the growth is clearly slowing down.



‘This undermines our chances to fulfil the National Renewable Energy Action Plan. A minimum plan is to install 500 MW of wind power per year’, explains Krzysztof Prasałek, President of the Polish Wind Energy Association. ‘Even worse, there are no perspectives for a clear improvement. Further drastic decrease in support levels for wind power proposed by the ministry in the draft RES Act and simultaneous increase in other investment risks makes such a significant development of this technology impossible.’

Contrary to the industry’s expectations and the legislator’s intentions the new RES Act significantly undermines the opportunities for further development – when experience to date, both from Poland as well as many other countries, demonstrates that wind power is not only fully clean, but also the most efficient RES technology with a stable development path. In the current circumstances the official forecasts of PSE Operator assuming that at the end of 2012 wind power in Poland will break the 3 GW threshold seem unrealistic.

The RES industry counts on a true and substantive discussion concerning the future of green energy in Poland and expects sufficiently long public consultations of the draft legislation.

back to top
PSEW 2012